Kerry gives up on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that the Obama administration will reassess its role in attempting to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine after the latest round of discussions proved to be all but fruitful.

Speaking to reporters from Rabat, Morocco amid his latest tour
overseas, Kerry said that the most recent attempts from the
United States to find common ground between leadership in the
Middle East have failed.

Reporting from Morocco, the Associated Press said Kerry appeared “visibly
downbeat” as he disclosed to journalists the results of the State
Department’s latest attempt to find an answer to the
long-standing issues between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Both sides said last year that they’d reach an agreement by the
end of April 2014, but Sec. Kerry said this week that a
negotiation between parties is nowhere as near as the White House
had hoped. Israel had initially agreed to release a group of
Palestinian prisoners, but earlier this week rescinded that
promise, prompting discussions to deteriorate even further.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded on Tuesday by
saying his nation would seek greater recognition from the United
Nations, much to the chagrin of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.

"They say they want to continue,” the AP quoted Kerry as
saying of both leaders. "But we are not going to sit there
indefinitely. This is not an open-ended effort. It's reality
check time."

“Israel has a habit of evading agreements and conventions it
has signed,” senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo
added to Agence France-Press this week.
“That is why conditions for future negotiations must change
radically.”

But Israeli leadership — namely Justice Minister Tzipi Livni —
now say that Palestine has soured the odds of an agreement by
appealing to the UN. Palestine “has breached its obligations
by applying to the United Nations” Livni said Wednesday, and that “if they want a
state, they need to understand that it will only be established
on the negotiating table.”

According to AP, Kerry suggested to journalists that there had
been a virtual collapse in efforts to negotiate as of late, and
his remarks were his “most pessimistic assessment of the
situation” since this round of talks started last summer.

"It is regrettable that in the last few days both sides have
taken steps that are not helpful and that's evident to
everybody," Kerry told reporters.

“You can facilitate, you can push, you can nudge, but the
parties themselves have to make fundamental decisions and
compromises,” he said. “The leaders have to lead and
they have to be able to see a moment when it’s there.”

According to the AP, Kerry will soon return to the US to see how
President Barack Obama and the rest of the players involved in
his administration overseas efforts will wish to proceed.

"Clearly we have an enormous amount on the plate," Kerry
said. At the same time, however, he added that "There are
limits to the amount of time and effort that the United States
can spend if the parties themselves are unable to take
constructive steps.”

“We are going to evaluate very carefully exactly where this
is and where it might possibly be able to go,” he said of
the talks.

In the meantime, though, the US is indeed embroiled to at least
some degree in a handful of other foreign affairs, and Kerry
specifically singled conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, as well as
ongoing efforts involving Iran’s nuclear program.